Let's Go
by RochelleRene
Summary: My version of what happens at the end of "Help Me."
1. Chapter 1

**I'm not sure many of you will like this idea, but I got oc7ober's blessing and she's the only one who threatens me physical harm so…**

**Basically, I know I'm a huge outlier, but I never liked "Now What?" I thought the episode was awkward and not "them" and saved all the good intense emotional stuff for the end (though I enjoyed the occasional post-coital falling on the bed shot). So I am writing my version of what I think would have happened after "Help Me" (where this fic starts) in probably about three chapters: the beginning, the middle, and the end of that transition into a relationship. (Not the "end" of the relationship, but the end of them moving fully into it.)**

**So you've been warned. If you loved "Now What?" and watched it eight zillion times, you might want to stop now.**

**For the second time, I'm posting an incomplete fic. I'll get to the other chapters as quickly as I can, but I am finishing up at school and, sadly, that takes priority. Thanks, always, for reading.**

[H] [H] [H]

"I'm stuck, House… I keep wanting to move forward. I keep… wanting to move on and I can't. I'm in my new house with my new fiancé and all I can think about is you." Cuddy took in a breath. "I just need to know if you and I can work."

House was staring at her with a look of shock the whole time she spoke, and now his expression slowly dissolved to one of thoughtfulness. "You think I can fix myself?"

Cuddy shook her head slightly, saying "I don't know."

He swallowed, then said aloud what they both knew. "Cuz I am the most screwed up person in the world." Then he looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes.

"I know," Cuddy said calmly. Then "I love you." She choked up after saying it, both with relief from unburdening herself with her confession, and with the slight panic that she had done so. She swallowed the lump in her throat and offered even more honesty. "I wish I didn't." She laughed a little. "But I can't help it."

House, his mind still reeling with this new information, moved to get up and immediately requested her help, since his screaming leg made his attempt futile. He recognized the foreshadowing this moment offered. There would be no template for them. He wasn't able to take care of her and carry her through life. He was too emotionally and physically damaged for that. She, in fact, would need to reach her hand out to him time after time. And she was here because she was too preoccupied with him to move on, too in love to pretend she wasn't. But she wished it were different. She wished the love weren't so. This wasn't a rom-com, a romance novel, or anything so clean and beautiful. Their love was gnarled and ancient. But in the twisted nature of it, there were nooks that held their secrets, and twists that kept them linked. And he wondered if that would be enough. As she pulled him up and he stepped to her, moving his body slowly closer, he wondered if maybe, just maybe, the way their love had manifested – through obsession and hurt and dysfunction and avoidance – might have somehow made it stronger. He wondered if maybe he wouldn't get hurt.

This is what he told himself as he leaned in and kissed her. Every cell in his body ignited when his lips met hers. When she kissed him back he was convinced this was the exact right thing to do, despite the nagging voice that warned him to batten down the hatches and sail away quickly. That voice was a coward. That voice was always afraid of happiness.

Still, it was loud and persistent. So House pulled away a little and studied her. "How do I know I'm not hallucinating?"

Cuddy smiled softly at his analytic expression. "Did you take the Vicodin?"

He looked down at his outstretched palm, with two of his other lovers gleaming white and simple in the dawn light. "No."

"Then I think we're okay." She smiled still.

House gave her a sideways grin and replied "Yeah," as he tossed the Vicodin onto the tile floor. He kissed her deeply this time and found her hand, holding on for dear life. They kissed there forever, Cuddy smiling between kisses and House's brain arguing with itself. _Do this. You want this. You've always wanted this._ These thoughts were winning, but threaded throughout were still the more cautious thoughts. _This is never going to work. You're not ready. She's not ready. And if you do this now, you won't get another chance._

Something about her smiling, though, and her warm mouth against his, and the way she held his hand… he crossed over into another place. He was hopeful, and he hadn't been that in a long, long time and it felt really, really good. It felt as good as her skin did beneath his palm when he slid his hand around her waist. When she pushed his jacket from his shoulders and the weight of the leather flopped to the floor, he tried to force his fears to go with it, to shirk them off. He told himself that Cuddy was usually right about stuff like this and that he'd be okay.

He was in a weird moment, aside from his fear of being happy, because he'd fantasized about her sexually since the day he met her, and he'd fantasized about her emotionally for a long time too. But the two fantasies didn't often meet. Banging her on her desk rarely wove together with the different ways he'd mentally professed his love. Maybe he'd done that on purpose because now, with their love and their desire mixing, he was almost light-headed. He was touching her, kissing her. And she loved him. Had loved him for a while. It was almost too much. So when she said "We have to re-bandage your shoulder," in response to dots of blood seeping onto his tee shirt, it was almost a welcome interruption. He was drowning in her and it was a chance to come up for air.

He nodded. He knew he had to go grab the medical kit, but he was afraid. He was scared if he stepped away, if he broke the spell she was under, her logical mind would be jarred back to reality and she'd take it all back.

But she loved him. She'd said so. She couldn't take that back, right?

So he stepped away from her, to a hall closet and retrieved a box with bandages and various other supplies. He came back and handed it to her, then kicked down the toilet lid and sat. She smirked at him. "You have to take your shirt off."

He smirked back. "You have to take _your_ shirt off." They stared at each other, giddy with this thing they had started. "Oh, sorry, I thought you were playing a game." He reached back and grabbed the shirt along his shoulder blades and tugged it forward over his head. He wasn't worried about how he looked, dusty and tired and bloody. His broken body was never his way of getting to her, he knew.

But to his surprise, it must have had some effect on her because she straddled his lap, grinning mischievously and kissing him lightly. His hands reached for her hips instinctually, despite the awkward plastic box of medical supplies between them. She sighed against his mouth, but pulled back and looked at his shoulder, her brow furrowing as she put her "doctor hat" back on. She peeled back the tape, glancing at his face to see if it hurt, but he was stoic, staring into space over her shoulder. When she had fully removed the bandage she evaluated, "This looks pretty bad."

"Always what the half-naked person wants to hear."

She grinned at him. "The wound, idiot." She pulled some gauze from the box and gently began cleaning the cut. "I think we need to suture it after all."

House turned his head, trying to see for himself, but its location made that impossible, so he had to rely on her judgment. "Okay." She smiled at him for some reason he didn't understand. "You're excited by this, you sadist?" he teased.

"No."

"Then why are you grinning like that?"

She shrugged. "I dunno." She got up and went to the sink to wash her hands well. "I'm just happy."

"I'm wounded and bleeding and trapped with an administrator and you're happy." He couldn't help it. He loved teasing her. He was basically ten years old.

She came back without a word, still grinning, and returned to her place on his lap, where he'd felt her absence acutely. He watched her wink an eye shut to thread the needle, grab another square of gauze, then look at him wickedly. "Watch me administrate," she said, and House felt her push the needle through his skin.

"Dammit, woman." He said, but without any tone of pain. This was really nothing compared to what he dealt with. "There's lidocaine in there somewhere."

"Oh, this is nothing compared to what you deal with," she replied, concentrating on the stitches. He grinned at all she knew. Cuddy finished putting in a half dozen sutures and made a little clucking noise of satisfaction. Then she reached for the tiny scissors, cut the thread, and dabbed the wound again with gauze. She applied some antibiotic cream and smoothed on a new bandage, proclaiming the job "Done!"

"Thank you," he said in a low, gruff voice.

She looked in his eyes. "You're welcome."

The business was attended to and she was still on his lap and their bodies were aware. They were just sitting there, looking at each other, but their breathing was getting quick and shallow. House took the stupid plastic box from between them and set it on the floor with a thud. Then he took his hands and pulled her closer, scooting her along his lap. It was in doing this that he realized she had her weight on the ball of her right foot, leaning the pressure that way, off of his thigh. It was then that he loved her a little bit more. It was then that the fear returned.

Their faces were nearly level in this position, so Cuddy only had to tip up a little to study his expression, which was inscrutable. "What's wrong?" she asked him, feeling the heat of his bare chest warm her through her scrub top. He shook his head, dismissing her question, but she knew something was bothering him. "What is it?" she probed again.

House looked at her and offered his own bathroom admission now. "I have fought against this for a long time. I mean, against wanting this… I've worked really hard to try to let you go."

It hung there. The years of work they had both done trying to wall off this possibility, turning it into an abscess that was doing neither of them any good.

"Don't let me go," she told him, cupping his face in her small hands. "Let's go."

And she kissed him and the kiss immediately caught fire and became the first step down a passionate road to surrender. They were letting this happen. It was happening. It had already happened. She reached down and pulled her own shirt over her head when she realized he was still being cautious, hesitant. Something about that move, though, reassured him and then he wasted no time smothering her skin with his hands, with his mouth. He unhooked her bra and tossed it somewhere, his hands splaying across her back, urging her to lean into them to give his mouth access to her breasts. She moaned with abandon as his tongue slid across her nipple. One of his hands slid up her back and into her hair, and when she leaned into it, he kissed along her neck, his stubble scratching her lightly, just as she'd always remembered.

She tasted incredible. Even through the dust and grime of the day's horror, he tasted the salt and sweetness of her skin. As if reading his mind she suddenly protested, "We're filthy." He ignored her, his mouth moving down to her other breast. God, putting his mouth on her was like oxygen at this point. "House," she whispered again, but it ended in another moan. "I'm serious. We're so gross."

He looked up at her with teasing eyes. "I'll just kiss whatever was covered in clothing," he promised, returning his attention to her breasts. She acquiesced quite easily after that. I mean, fuck it, right? Making love for the first time in thirty years with grimy beaten-up bodies in a bathroom scattered with broken glass… it didn't get much more appropriate, metaphorically.

So when he shifted and lowered her to the floor, her bare back shocked by the cool tiles, she wasn't disappointed. She didn't come to him for silk sheets and roses. She came to him for the primal connection that they had, through every triumph and tragedy. She came to him for him, in whatever state that might be.

As he began sliding her pants off, kissing her stomach and the line of her panties along the way, she felt something hard on the back of her head and reached to remove it. She looked at it through half closed eyes because his fingers were inside of her now and she was delirious with need. It was one of the Vicodin. She turned it over and over in her fingers, working out her worries while he brought her closer to orgasm. She closed her fist around the pill when she felt his mouth on her sex, opening her with his tongue. His hands spread her thighs further for him and she thought she might come right then, but she fought it. Sometimes resisting, making it take longer, made it better.

Instead she gasped "House" into the silent bathroom, even the whisper reverberating off the walls and reverberating in his head. All he wanted right now was to give her pleasure, and to have her associate that with him. If he did that enough, it would start to crowd out all of the other associations and he'd satisfy her and be enough for her and she'd be happy with him. So as much as the taste of her and the smell of her and the feeling of her between his lips was making it hard for him to not climb back up her body and take her, he was motivated by something bigger than lust.

He felt her back arch as his tongue slid along the length of her sex, and he slid a hand to the small of her back. He felt her hold her breath when he closed his lips over her clit and he groaned, telling her he wanted this as much as she did. He felt her thighs tense, taut as stretched rubber bands, when he circled her gently with his tongue, and he slid his other hand to her sex too, entering her with his fingers. Cuddy was crying out now, whimpering and telling him not to stop and it was the hottest thing he had ever heard. When he sucked gently on her she was done and her hand clawed at his hair and she screamed his name and told him she was coming (as if that weren't clear) and he didn't stop or change a thing and it went on forever and he knew he'd never forget her saying three things from that night:

"All I can think about is you."

"I love you."

and

"God, House, I'm coming."

He could die a happy man, he thought.

When he could tell it was ebbing and he was too much, he stopped, kissing all around her, rubbing his face slowly along her thigh, crawling carefully up her body, which was gorgeous and sprawled on the cold tile floor. Her face was turned to the side and she was catching her breath. He settled his body over hers and saw her open palm, near her face, with a Vicodin lying in it. He waited.

Cuddy turned to him eventually, and smiled up at him. She went to stroke his face with her hand and the forgotten pill clicked across the floor. She followed the sound with her eyes. "Are you okay?" she asked him, the pill reminding her of his state not an hour earlier.

He studied her worried face and confessed "No." Then he propped on an elbow and ran his fingers over the features of her face. Along the bridge of her nose. Down the curve of her jaw. Over her eyelids, which closed to his touch. "Is that okay?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah." She wanted it to be.

"I mean, I'm fine with the whole building-falling-on-me-patient-dying thing," he said, trying to diffuse the intensity. "I'm just so aroused it's crossed from fun to painful."

She grinned at his deflection and joined him in it, equally scared of the serious stuff they were towing along behind them on this journey. "Well, _that_ kind of trouble I think I can help you with." She wrapped her legs around his waist and began fumbling around with his belt. When she'd undone it, he helped her kick his legs free of his jeans. She wasted no time removing his boxers, getting him naked against her. He was kissing her neck and face, his hands sliding all over her body. She felt his cock pushing against her sex, filling her with the anticipation of feeling him inside her. Then he propped on his arms and looked down at her. "I love you, Cuddy… I think I forgot to say that out loud." She felt a pang in her heart that almost brought her to tears. So thank God his next words were "What with all the blood rushing to my penis." She laughed. She slid her feet along the length of his legs, urging him to get this thing going.

"You comfortable?" he asked, with a grin. "Anything I can do for you?"

She was tired of his teasing and retorted "Well, this tile floor is pretty cold," as she shoved him gently to flip him onto his back. He sucked air through his teeth as his skin made contact with the floor, then exhaled it with relief when Cuddy sank down on him the next moment. He smiled, his eyes closed, head lolled back a little. She felt each of his fingers where they gripped her hips.

"You comfortable?" she echoed, grinning naughtily. "Anything I can do for you?"

House opened his eyes and stared at her body, taking in the sight of Cuddy, naked, riding him on his bathroom floor. "You're doing it," he exhaled.

Cuddy's hands were resting lightly on his stomach as she rolled her hips over his. She felt every inch of him as he entered and left her, and knew she always would. The delicious thing about him leaving was knowing he'd come back, his absence only making his arrival all the more appreciated. She fucked him slow and deep like this, sighing and moaning with every stroke of his length against her. She squeezed her muscles around him and he groaned, still staring at her through half-closed eyes, watching her breasts bounce with the movement of her body, watching her bite her lip as she let him inside her. He was going to have stroke. He was sure of it. She was slowly killing him. When she whispered, "I think about this all the time," he swore he felt the aneurism burst in his brain.

But if he died, she was coming with him, he decided, slipping his thumb over her clit and putting pressure against her each time she slid down on him. Her sighs turned to moans, animalistic and pleading. Very quickly, the slow fucking they were both enjoying was nowhere near enough, and Cuddy fell to her hands over him, pushing her hips down on him over and over, the entering blending with the leaving. He kept his hand where it was, stroking her clit as she moved over him, craning to taste neck and breast, whatever he could reach. But then she cried out and her sex spasmed around him and he dropped his head back on the tile, overcome. He groaned and exhaled and said things he didn't remember that had words like "yes" and "always" and "more" because he was greedy for her. He felt her body still over him, but he was still coming and saying her name and her mouth was lazily against his and it was like he was letting go of all the hesitation he had left and all that remained was pleasure and Cuddy's skin, and Cuddy's husky voice moaning in his ear.

When he finally came to rest under her, and she laid her head on his rising chest, he felt a deep peace and a deep exhaustion. He traced the lines of her form with his fingertips and fought sleep. He had almost crossed over to dreamland when her voice roused him.

"I'm too tired to clean the glass out of your tub - You do realize what a ridiculous sentence that is, right? – so let's just go to bed and deal with it tomorrow." He grunted his agreement and she stood up. He lay on the floor and looked up at her and she was so beautiful, even dirty and with red, puffy eyes. She looked down at him while rubbing an eye with the back of her hand.

"I'll never stop," he blurted out before he chickened out because he knew she'd like to hear it. "I'll always love you."

Cuddy smiled. "I know."

"How do you know?"

"Because you told me while you were having an orgasm." She smirked at him.

"You're not supposed to take stuff I say then very seriously," he warned.

"Oh, okay, Good to know. So next time I _will_ stop when you moan for me not to."

He grinned at her a little sheepishly. "Just take it all with a grain of salt," he amended.

"That's how I always take you," she replied, holding out a hand to help pull him up. They walked to his bed and crawled in. Cuddy rolled her back to him and scooted right up against his body like they did this all the time. He spread his hand over her stomach and listened to her breathing, and in spite of the sex, that was the moment he felt closest to her. And, like a drug, he wanted it all the time.


	2. Chapter 2

**I decided to break the next chapter into two parts, because this part is a little unlike me. I write more about their internal thoughts than I usually do, but I feel like the circumstances call for it. So I promise in the next chapter, there will be actual dialogue. **

**Also, none of you told me I called Cuddy's thighs "taught" instead of "taut." LMAO! I fixed it and I am blaming it on writing a dissertation in the education field. I type the word "taught" waaaaaay more than the word "taut," sadly. Next chapter I talk about House's incredibly well-educated penis. ;)**

**Thanks for reading.**

[H] [H] [H]

Cuddy roused in the midday light, opening her eyes and yawning. House was facing her, still asleep. She studied him. It was almost surreal to see the man asleep. The physical tension and animation that made him such a force were paused; the eyes that glinted and danced with humor and passion were shuttered; the sense that he would immediately react with word or gesture was dulled. Here was House at rest. It was like seeing a light-up noisy toy with dead batteries.

She lay there looking at him, his smooth calm features and slow deep breathing, and replayed the day before in her head. How had she gone from being so furious with him, feeling like she hated him and wanted to hurt him deeply, to needing to comfort him and take care of him and be with him indefinitely? What had transpired? What was the moment of change?

It wasn't anything he'd said or done. His confession to Hannah was atypical, for sure, and had moved her, but she had seen House vulnerable before and it hadn't been enough to make her risk everything she had worked so hard for. She supposed, in the end, it was simple exhaustion from swimming upstream.

The Vicodin… the damn Vicodin had always been her convenient excuse. Those little white tablets were life preservers for both of them. She couldn't get involved with the man because he had a drug problem, and when she got Rachel that only sealed the deal. But in her head, she'd never let him get sober, because then what would stop her? He'd worked for a year to show her he was different, healthier. Even that morning with her grandfather's book, he was making that effort. But in her head, House was off limits, and his sobriety only made it harder.

So she was exhausted. Tired of resisting, every day. Tired of pretending that what she should want was what she did want. And at the end of that horrific day, when the wounded had been bandaged, the dead had been tagged and bagged, and she was finally free to go, she'd sat in her car, exhausted and emotionally worn down, and she didn't want to work so hard anymore. She questioned what "going home" was supposed to feel like.

And she drove to House. And she saw him there, about to do it. And she still felt peace. Because she knew him, and she knew him and this drug, and she knew him and his pain, and she knew she could do this. She knew that at some level, she had been training all this time to be able to do this… But it was still Everest, towering above her. It was still gonna be hard as hell.

His eyelids fluttered a little. He was dreaming. He had dreamed all night long, she knew. They slept in a tangle of limbs. They would rouse, naked against each other, and silently touch and kiss. They'd made love only partially awake once, and started to another time but they both fell back asleep, his body still inside her. The intensity of their feelings and the intensity of their exhaustion were in battle all night long. So she had heard him when he spoke during his sleep, his brows knitting when he had fearfully protested "Stay," for no apparent reason. She'd simply stroked his face a few times and he'd calmed.

Cuddy closed her eyes and fell back to sleep within minutes.

House roused and stretched in the bed, looking at sleeping Cuddy. He'd say she was even more beautiful, with her forehead relaxed and her pint-size frame unclenched, but she wasn't. He missed her eyes and her smile. But he still couldn't take his eyes off of her.

He told himself to enjoy this, to bask in it. But the pit in his stomach wouldn't budge. It was like someone saying you _might_ have won the lottery or you _might_ get a prison reprieve… She was just within his reach but he felt like it could go either way. And if he lost her, he knew he would wish this night had never happened so he wouldn't feel it all so profoundly. It would change from the dull ache he was used to into a sharp stab that would take his breath away. She could wake and offer him her wide smile that told him she was happy with what had transpired, at peace with her rash decision. Or she could wake and grin tightly and politely while her mind quickly formulated an escape route.

So until that verdict, he would just soak up what he could. He looked at the arm that had wrapped around him all night. He looked at the lips that had eagerly moved along his. He remembered the eyes that were peaceful and tender, even as he sat on the floor about to throw it all away again.

No one had ever looked at him like that.

And it had kept getting better. What she said. What they did. What she said to what he said. What she did to what he did. It was like they were finally in synch. It felt like home.

But she'd screamed at him not hours before, about how tired she was of all he had been in her life. She'd told him she was moving on and he would be alone. And he'd called her a narcissist and mocked her life choices… Was all that just erased? Vacuumed up? Or was it dust in the corners and cracks in the paint that would make this feel less like home and more like some abandoned house.

He propped on his elbow and gently moved a strand of hair off her face. He could still feel her, every sensation of making love to her. And he couldn't feel the rage that had made him say such horrible things. That meant something, right? Some things lasted and some faded away.

When her eyelids moved a little he realized he was holding his breath.

She blinked herself back to awake and looked at him.

And smiled.

And he exhaled.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey, boss," House murmured, tucking a lock of Cuddy's hair behind her ear. "Think I could have the day off?"

Cuddy smiled wider, rubbing her eyes. She yawned, "Why? Are you sick?"

"My penis is," he replied. "It was up all night."

Cuddy paused stretching and glared at him. "Why do you have to be gross, right from the get go? What happened to romance?"

House smirked and started kissing her neck. "I'm romantic," he protested, the words muffled against her skin.

"Penis jokes are not romantic."

He paused his close inspection of her dips and curves and looked at her. "Huh. That may have been my problem all these years."

Cuddy laughed. "You were opening with the topic of erections at the bars? Yeah, that may have caused you trouble, Casanova."

"Okay, let's start again," he said, returning his mouth to her skin, kissing across her chest, down over each breast, along her ribs and stomach. "I want to wake up next to you again tomorrow." He kissed her hips. "And the next day." He kissed down her thighs, her knees, lifted a leg and kissed her calves down to her heel. "And the day after that." He kissed a big toe and looked at her, grinning mischievously. "Better?"

She took him in - his eyebrows raised, a smile playing on his lips, totally obsessed with her body and with making her laugh – and she saw glimpses of the twenty-four year old House of her past. "Getting there," she teased and he nuzzled up her body again to kiss her.

"So let's take the day off and I'll continue romancing you. I think I have something fizzy. It's probably in a can but I can pour it in a wine glass." He nudged her chin with his nose, eager to get at more of her neck. "And I'll even let you use my shower, cuz I'm that kind of guy."

"I think we've probably already taken a day off," she observed, noting the sun streaming in the windows. "What time is it?"

"No idea," House murmured, grabbing her around the waist, rolling onto his back, and pulling her on top of him.

Cuddy sighed and sank into his body, but her typical thought pattern was returning and she moaned her first non-erotic moan in hours. "I'm terrified to even check my phone."

"So don't," he suggested, his hands sliding down to her hips.

"I think at least one of us should behave like an adult today," she chided. House half-grunted, half-whined in protest. "Clearly that's up to me."

House sighed heavily then moved his wandering hands behind his head and looked up at her as she perched on his hips. "Alright," he said reluctantly. "You check your phone and I'll clean up the bathroom. After the day you worked yesterday, you do deserve a hot shower. And a hot showered man."

"What's hot in that scenario? The man or the shower?"

House raised an eyebrow. "You'll find out." She touched her nose to his and rolled off of him. He watched her tiptoe into the bathroom and look around the scattered items on the floor for her scrubs, where she pulled out her phone, glanced at the screen, sighed and put a hand to her forehead. "It's gonna be okay, Cuddy," he called out. "It's all gonna be okay."

She glanced at him briefly, then padded back to the bed and flopped down and began clicking and scrolling through messages of all forms. House stood up and stretched his aching limbs. His back was to Cuddy, so she freely paused her frantic catching up to stare at his naked body, as he twisted and stretched. She saw him bend slightly and rub his thigh for a half minute before he turned and began limping to the bathroom. "Might wanna put something on," Cuddy warned. "Broken glass and exposed genitals aren't a great combination."

"I think I saw that on a public service announcement," he muttered, turning back to his chest of drawers and fishing out some pajama pants. Cuddy smiled and returned to her work.

House got a vacuum from the closet and dragged it into the bathroom. He hesitated starting it, though, because he could hear Cuddy talking to someone on the phone. After a moment he deduced it was her sister, who had Rachel.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's all resolved. I just have… There's stuff from yesterday that I am still… dealing with. Are you sure you don't mind?... … … Thank you. I owe you. Can I talk to Rachel?"

He felt funny now, eavesdropping on her talking to her daughter, but he didn't know why. He usually had no qualms about prying into her private life. But he felt it all the same and quickly plugged the vacuum in and was closing the door to block out the noise just as she was saying, "Hey, baby. I miss you."

He started the vacuum and was alone with his thoughts while he sucked up the mess he had made, the glass tinkling in the tub and rattling up the machine's tube. When the glass was gone, he touched on the corners and the crevices of the room, for good measure. He shut it off when he saw the Vicodin bottle on the floor, not sure what to do with it. He picked it up, found the two loose pills, returned them to the bottle and set it on top of the toilet tank. He unplugged the vacuum and was just turning on the hot water when Cuddy came in.

"I cannot wait for this," she said, sticking her hand in the water to see if it was hot yet. House grinned at her and was pushing the vacuum out of the way. He called over his shoulder, "Will you flush that Vicodin?" and continued down the hall. When he walked back to the bathroom, Cuddy was standing there, naked, staring at the pill bottle on the toilet. He stopped and stared at her and she turned and met his eyes.

"No," she said quietly.

"No, what?"

"No, I'm not flushing it." He looked at her, confused. "You have to do it, House. It has to be your decision. I'm not gonna be your mom, or your policeman."

"Damn, there go my top two role playing fantasies."

She glared at him. "I'm serious, House. If I am the flusher in this relationship, I'll never be able to keep up with you. You'll always have stuff I can't find." He nodded. She was right. There was a reason he didn't flush them in the first place; it was still hard to clear a stash. But faced with her challenge, he walked over to the bottle, and unceremoniously dumped them in, flushing the toilet. "Did you find the two on the floor?" she asked.

"I thought you weren't my mom."

She took his face in her hands and looked very serious. "I can't flush them for you. But I can ask you if you did. Again and again." She needed him to understand that this would be part of them. It would always be there because his addiction would always be there. She had thought about this a lot as she drove to his place the day before. She had known how she'd likely find him. She had even known she might not make it in time to prevent a relapse. But it didn't matter to her anymore; she had accepted that Vicodin would be another member of this relationship. "I can deal with your addiction, House. But I don't wanna feel like you won't tell me when you're struggling. I don't wanna ask you if you're using and not be able to believe you. That's a dealbreaker. If you relapse, we'll handle it. If you lie to me… I'll shove those pills up your ass," she threatened.

House stared at her serious face. "They can still be absorbed that way," he joked.

"Not in the bottle," Cuddy said forebodingly, not smiling. He grinned for a moment at her joke, then grew serious too.

"I found them," he told her. "They're gone," he said, just to be clear.

Cuddy nodded, kissed him lightly on the lips. "I need to take a shower, and you need to call Wilson," she said, patting him on the cheek.

House gave her a look of disgust. "You're gonna be in my shower and you expect me to spend that time listening to Wilson drone on about… things Wilson drones on about?"

She smiled and pulled back the curtain, stepping into the steam. "He's freaking out. He left me half a dozen messages. Deal with him." House memorized the image of her naked body in his shower before she snapped the curtain shut, closing the issue. He plodded down the hall to where he had thrown his jacket and dug for his phone. Six texts and four voicemails. Christ. He checked the voicemail queue and saw they were all from Wilson. He played the first four seconds of each and noted how the man's voice was growing higher-pitched and sputterier with each message. He sighed and called him back.

"House," Wilson proclaimed when he answered.

"I'm fine," House responded. "Stop stalking me."

"Where are you?"

"At my apartment. Where did you think I'd be?" House griped.

"I had you dead in a crack den, or on your motorcycle wrapped around a tree."

"I considered those options," House replied coolly, "but bed seemed a lot more enticing after being up for 24 hours."

"So you're fine," Wilson checked.

"I'm fine."

"You're sober."

"I'm sober."

There was a long pause and House knew Wilson was allowing his insides to unclench now, relieved that his friend was okay. "I'm sorry about your patient," he finally said.

"Yeah," House cleared his throat. "You win some, you kill some."

"You didn't kill her, House. A fat embolism could have happened no matter when you did the amputation."

"I know, Wilson. I'm fine."

"I'm coming over."

"No!" House said emphatically.

"House, you cut off a woman's leg last night. And then she died. There is no way that is not bothering you."

"I'm fine, Wilson. Do. Not. Come. Over."

House had erred… He'd been too insistent and now Wilson's radar was back up. "Are you high?" he asked.

House laughed. Shit, he needed to sound more himself. More resigned and depressed. He made himself frown. "Wilson, I did not take anything. I'm okay. I just need to sleep. I'll come in…" He thought of Cuddy and how they had no real plan beyond minute-to-minute. "I'll be in probably tomorrow." He held his breath, hoping this would do the trick.

"Okay," Wilson relented and House did a little fist pump of victory. "But you should call Cuddy. She's worried about you too." _What a liar! _House knew he should quit while he was ahead, but he couldn't resist poking at this.

"Oh yeah? You talked to her?"

"She worries about you, House. We both do."

"Huh. Funny. We had a big fight yesterday."

"You did? About what?"

"She told you she's worried about me?" House deflected.

"Yeah."

"When?"

"When?"

"Yeah, when?"

"I dunno. I called her looking for you. She… wants to know when I've heard from you."

House was fighting the urge, knowing he should probably check with Cuddy first, but he just couldn't stop himself. "Oh. Okay. Well, I'll go tell her I'm fine. Since she's _in my shower_."

Silence. House grinned like the Cheshire cat, picturing Wilson squirming. "House?" Wilson said slowly. "You're saying Cuddy is there right now?"

"Yes. And I don't know when you had all these worried exchanges with her, since she was next to me all night. Er, all morning."

More silence. "House, I think I should come over."

"That would pretty much kill this buzz, Wilson, so no."

"I mean, I wanna see you both. Congratulate you." Wilson's voice sounded weird, like he was talking to a child. Then House computed what Wilson was thinking.

"I'm not hallucinating, Wilson. I didn't take anything. She's here."

"I know! I understand. I just wanna come over and see you guys. I've been worried about you both."

"Yeah you were probably worried about Cuddy when you were having all these bullshit conversation with her, huh?"

"House, I-"

"Wilson, I'm fine," House interrupted. "More than fine. Go away. I'll see you tomorrow." He hung up. He tossed his phone on the table and immediately heard Cuddy's start ringing in the bedroom. He was inclined to go answer it, just to rub Wilson's face in it, but Cuddy naked in his shower was way more tempting. He walked into the bathroom, stood outside the curtain and stuck his arm in, rapping on the tile. "Knock, knock."

"Who is it?" Cuddy asked, feigning true inquiry.

"Water authority. Gotta check your pipes."

"You can only come in if you make no additional pipe, wet, or dirty puns," she ordered.

House pulled the curtain back and stuck his head in, looking at her with innocent eyes. "What about dripping?" Cuddy glared at him in response. He quickly kicked off his pants and got in. She was gorgeous, all fresh faced and rosy cheeked from the hot water. Her eyes were sparkling and smiling up at him, and her body was… Well, he didn't waste a moment pulling her against him. She squirmed in protest.

"I just got clean," she whined. "You're still all gravely and bloody and gross."

"That's what I always look like. It doesn't come off." She smirked at him and threw a sopping wash cloth at his chest with a splat. "What is this?" he asked, holding it between two fingers.

"A wash cloth."

"Men don't use these," he explained. "We wash cloth-less."

"Then why do you own one?"

"I own a vacuum too. Wanna know the last time I broke that thing out?" he teased. "Where did you even find this?"

"I went to your hall closet." House felt worry rising in his chest.

"When?"

"When you were talking to Wilson. Why the third degree?" she laughed. "You got a body in there?"

House was worried she'd heard him tell Wilson she was here. He didn't know what she'd think about that. But then he realized that Wilson had surely just relayed this on a voicemail anyway. He chided himself for being so impulsive. "So, I told Wilson you're here." Cuddy sighed heavily and House's heart sank. "Did you…" He was panicking a little. "You want to keep this a secret?" he asked, trying to sound indifferent.

Cuddy's eyes widened and she looked at him sadly. She stepped up to him and put her arms around his neck. "No, House," she said emphatically. "I don't want to keep this a secret." She kissed him lightly on the lips. "I just know that we have less than an hour now until Wilson is at your door." House exhaled with relief. He wanted this to be real, not some little tryst on the side.

"Yeah, so we better buy a different apartment. Fast."

Cuddy laughed. "It's fine. We'll deal with Wilson." She started slowly switching sides with him, her arms still around his neck, so that the water poured over his head. House groaned with pleasure. "Oh my God that feels good."

"I know. You should try the cloth," she teased.

House opened one eye, water streaming down his face, and sneered at her. He grabbed the soap and started sudsing up. "Watch how a man does it, baby." Cuddy laughed. She groped him a little while he cleaned himself off, typical shower action. But after he was free of grime and soap, his skin warm to the touch and droplets dripping off the end of his nose, he looked at her. "Kay, clean. Manly clean." He grinned. "Can you get out now? This is the part when I think about you naked while I masturbate."

Cuddy cracked up. "So sorry to disrupt your routines," she said.

"At least now when I'm late for work it won't be so awkward to tell you why."

Cuddy put her hands on his chest and pushed on him gently, leaning him against the shower wall. She bit her lip. "You're going to be very late today." She ran her hand along his cock and he was immediately aroused.

House sighed a little, the hot water and her hand and her voice all making everything so unbelievably good. "I might get fired," he murmured, lowering his lips to hers. "I'm late a lot," he said against her mouth.

"Mmmmm," Cuddy answered as House grabbed her ass, hard. "I'll put in a good word for you," she promised. Then she kissed his chin, his neck, his chest. One hand stayed around his girth, and the other skated over his stomach, then Cuddy slowly sank to her knees in front of him.

"Wait, woah," House didn't know why he was hesitating. He just hadn't expected this. But it didn't matter anyway because Cuddy wasn't listening. She was wrapping her lips around him. She was running her tongue along the length of him. She was taking him in her mouth. House shut up. He leaned his head back and tried to control his breathing because this was so hot and sudden, he was hyperventilating a little.

When he had calmed himself enough to fully enjoy it, feeling her warm mouth, her hands skimming along his body, he looked down at her. He watched her slowly lavish her attention on him, felt the sensations of her every movement. Then her eyes looked up and met his and he couldn't believe how amazing it was to see her eyes while she was doing this to him, making him feel like this. Every other thought left his mind and she was all there was. They stared at each other for a minute, then Cuddy closed her eyes, like it was all too much for _her_, and made her movements more intentional, the sensations more intense. He couldn't help groaning his approval and was a little embarrassed at how it echoed off the bathroom walls, until she answered with her own moan that also echoed off the bathroom walls, and then he wondered why they couldn't just moan in the bathroom all day long because it was so awesome. He felt the spring of ecstasy tightening deep in his belly, the delicious tension rising like a wave. "Cuddy," he whispered. He said her name again just because he liked how it sounded. Her eyes flitted up to his again, but she didn't pause or slow or do anything to deter what was happening, and seeing her see him, see what she was doing to him, it was all too much and he had to break the stare and lay his head back and come, concentrating only on how unbelievable this felt and on staying in a standing position.

Cuddy stayed there, making it last as long as she could, feeling turned on by how much she could turn him on. When he was done, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily, she kissed her way back up his body, nuzzling her face against his neck and smiling.

"That was…" He never did finish the sentence.

She ran her hand up and down his arm, hanging at his side. "It was," she agreed. She pulled back to meet his eyes. His face was all loose and post-coital, staring back at her dreamily. His breath gradually slowed and his limbs began to have feeling again. He put his hands to his face and scrubbed himself back to full consciousness.

"Okay," he sighed. "Thanks for that. But can you get out now? This is the part when I think about you naked while I masturbate." He grinned at her when she smacked his chest and laughed.

House leaned over and turned off the water. Cuddy opened the curtain and they both stepped out, grabbing the towels Cuddy had retrieved from the closet. They stood there drying off, still smiling. Cuddy watched him towel off his hair, his face partially covered by the fabric. She tucked her towel together around her body and looked up at him, concern on her face. He raised his eyebrows at her in question. "Will it stay fun?" she asked.

House paused drying himself and let the towel drape around his neck while he looked at her. "Us?" he asked. Cuddy nodded. "Yeah," he said without hesitation.

"But we fight," she pointed out.

"Even that's kinda fun," he countered.

"But there's… worry and illness and… addiction and working together and… you piss me off all the time and I piss you off all the time and we don't know how to tell each other what we need." She looked at him, hoping for an answer that would calm the fears surging through her.

House bit his thumbnail and looked over her shoulder down the hall, deep in thought. After a moment he met her eyes again. "Cuddy, the only time I'm not having fun with you is when I think I'm losing you. I like that you fight me and I like that you tell me what you need me to do or what I should do, even if I disagree with you. Because you take care of shit. That's what you do. And I like you."

She smiled at his sweet compliment, but was not fully reassured. "But it won't always be easy like this."

House smirked at her. "No? I was preparing myself for daily oral sex in the shower." Cuddy smirked back at him but still had her eyebrows knit in thought. House thought about what she was saying. "No, it won't always be… the beginning," he agreed. "But if you're asking me if what is after the beginning will be good…" he trailed off. She nodded at him because that was what she was asking. "Cuddy," he swallowed hard. "I love you. And the times when it's been hardest, when we really hurt each other, I didn't wish I didn't love you," he said, tossing back the words she'd said to him earlier. "I just wished you loved me."

Cuddy teared up. "I did," she whispered.

"I wasn't sure."

"Well, I did. I do. Love you."

"Well… I think it's gonna be good then." He stepped to her and put his arms around her. "I think if that's clear, it's gonna be good."

"You're not as jaded as you pretend to be," she teased. "Love conquers all?"

House sucked his lips in, thinking. "Maybe," he answered. "But I don't think all the crap people are calling love is really love," he clarified. "There's my jadedness."

"How do you know this is?" she asked him.

"It fits."

Cuddy reached her arms up around his neck again and stood on her tiptoes. House's hand snuck into the fold of her towel and was just grazing her skin when they heard a formidable knock on his apartment door. They both sighed with annoyance and pressed their foreheads together. "That's Wilson," House muttered. "So, no, Cuddy. It's not always gonna be fun." He bit her neck gently before he dropped his towel, grabbed his pajama pants, closed the bathroom door, and plodded reluctantly down the hall.


	4. Chapter 4

**So, this is definitely longer than the three chapters I thought it would be, but I *think* there will be just one more after this.**

**Thank you to vicpei1, mystryGAB, and maya295_ for assuring me that you can never go wrong with House going down. ;)**

**[H] [H] [H] **

House opened his apartment door to see Wilson, suited up for work, holding a bag of takeout Thai food, his eyes squinty in concern. "What part of 'I'm fine. I need sleep. Don't come over,' was hard for you?" House griped. Wilson ignored him and gestured up and down with his hand at House's attire, wrinkling his face in disgust. House looked down at his own bare torso and droopy pajama pants. "I'm supposed to be having sex, not hosting brunch," House explained tersely. He turned and walked toward the kitchen, leaving the door open for Wilson to enter. "Cuddy!" he called. "Bring me a shirt, will ya? Wilson can't keep his hands off me!"

There was no response and Wilson studied House closely, not sure what kind of situation he was dealing with. "Cuddy's still here, huh?" he asked suspiciously. House had his back to him and was making a pot of coffee, but glanced over his shoulder at him. He could sense Wilson's worry and decided to take advantage.

"She's right there," he replied. "You forgot my shirt," he said into the empty space near Wilson.

Wilson alternated looking between the empty room and House. "House…"

"You want coffee?" House asked.

"Um… no…" Wilson stammered.

"I wasn't asking _you_, dumbass. You weren't even invited."

"You were asking Cuddy?"

"Uh, yeah," House replied, as if Wilson were mentally challenged.

Wilson felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and used it as an excuse to bide his time while he decided how to handle House's clear loss of marbles. It was an email from Cuddy. Another followed in short succession. "Funny," Wilson said carefully. "I'm getting staff-wide emails from Cuddy right this very moment."

"I know," House groaned. "You'd think after the best sex of her life, the woman would set down her Blackberry. Enough, woman!" he called, drying his hands on the legs of his pants. He walked back to the doorway and leaned in the threshold, looking straight at Wilson and trying his hardest not to break. Wilson stared at him, completely flabbergasted, at a loss as to what he should do next.

Then the actual Cuddy came shuffling through from the hallway, dressed in House's tee shirt and sweatpants that were hanging off of her like curtains. She was typing busily on her phone as she walked toward the kitchen. "Tell me I am actually smelling coffee," she said, as she handed House a tee without a word. House pulled it on and turned back to the counter to pour what was ready for each of them. Cuddy muttered, "Lemme just finish this email, Wilson, and then I can pay attention to you." She typed another ten seconds, sighed, and set her phone down, replacing it with the steaming mug House was offering her. The two of them leaned on opposite sides of the wide doorway, both sipping coffee and looking at Wilson over the edges of their mugs.

Wilson, for his part, was mentally replaying the last five minutes and staring at two people with disheveled hair, in wrinkly graphic tees, both focused on him with clear bright eyes, smirking as they guzzled their coffee.

"What the hell is going on?!" he cried, throwing his arms wide.

House grinned. "Wait, you mean… you see her too?" He feigned a shocked expression as he looked from Wilson to Cuddy and back. Then he couldn't help it and grinned widely before taking another swig of coffee.

Wilson shook his finger at House. "When I last saw you, you were miserable."

"I'm less miserable," House replied, shooting a look at Cuddy.

Wilson shook his finger at Cuddy. "And when I last saw you, you were engaged."

Cuddy looked at the ground for a moment, embarrassed. "I'm less engaged." She grinned at House now. There was a silence.

"Those two facts are somewhat related," House explained to Wilson.

Wilson pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and rubbed it for a second. "So, did you guys have some heart-to-heart, or just get naked and screw?" Wilson asked, fatigue in his voice.

Cuddy looked from Wilson to House. "I don't know if this is girl talk or guy talk."

"It's Wilson," House commented. "It's hermaphrodite talk."

Wilson put his hands on his hips, looked from one to the other, then dropped onto the couch with an exasperated sigh. "Fourteen people died, dozens of others were injured, and you two found time to work out all your issues, huh?" he mused.

Cuddy looked at him sympathetically now; after all, he meddled because he cared. "I know it seems impulsive, Wilson," she explained, walking into the living room to sit on a chair near him. "But it really isn't."

Wilson chuckled. "No," he said sarcastically, "Nothing impulsive at all about calling off your engagement in the middle of the night and starting a relationship with…" he gestured at House still leaning in the doorway. "With _House,_" he said, at a loss of words for how to describe the man more pithily.

"My point is," Cuddy continued, "This has been a long time coming."

Wilson looked at her with worry in his eyes. "That's what I used to think, Cuddy. And then you were adamant it would never work. And now, after one weird night, you do a one-eighty." He gave her a tight smile. "I just don't want to see more hurt people come out of that crane collapsing."

House stayed where he was in the doorway, but was listening carefully. He had never heard them talk this way, as friends in their own right. He was no longer the "glue" person; they had shared their lives, and their thoughts about him, in their own private friendship sphere.

"Wilson," Cuddy began. "It's not a one-eighty. And you know that. I've been heading toward this for years, but resisting where the winds were pushing me. And I know it sounds cliché, but sometimes in the face of all that tragedy, you realize how you want to spend your life." She looked at House and smiled, but he was stoic in the doorway. "And who you want to spend it with," she added.

Wilson stared at Cuddy and offered a half-hearted grin. "It's not that I'm not happy," he began. "I'm thrilled, even. I just worry that-"

"Oh, God," House complained abruptly. "If we gotta start listening to Wilson process his feelings, can we at least start eating the food he brought?" He walked over to the coffee table and started opening packages. "See? You knew I wasn't hallucinating. This is tofu." He handed the box to Cuddy.

Wilson grinned. "I was… cautiously hopeful." They all started eating out of both hunger and a desire for some normalcy. "So it must have been crazy out there. The ER was overwhelmed, but at least we had medical equipment."

Cuddy nodded. "I have never done triage like that. It was like a warzone. It messed with my head." She took a bite.

"How?" House asked.

"Hmm?" Cuddy replied, her mouth full.

"How did it mess with your head?" he asked.

She finished chewing and answered, "It's like all this time as a doctor, I thought I had experienced that phenomenon of being numbed from the death and injury we see all the time. But last night was the first time… They almost stopped being people. They were just, like, tasks. I had to move them from the in box to the out box like paper." They were all quiet for a moment, their most painful moments as doctors rising into their minds. "Like when you noticed the emboli in that guy's toes," she told House. "I took him off the transport list and never thought of him again. Til I saw him dead a few hours later." She rubbed her neck a little. "I've never taken away someone's right to treatment with so little emotion before."

Wilson looked at her with empathy. "You had to do your job," he reassured her. "There were too many people to truly care about each one."

The irony was staring them in the face so much, it was hard to look at House. He had connected with a patient more deeply than ever, on a night everyone else was moving them like so much meat across a conveyor belt.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Wilson asked him.

"About the guy with atherosclerotic emboli?" House asked. "Nah, we barely even kissed."

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "I think he means Hannah, House."

"I told you. I'm fine," House said to Wilson.

"You amputated a woman's leg, after trying for hours to save it, and you were next to her when she died. There's no way that didn't affect you."

"No," House mused, "But if we're really lucky, maybe there's a way you'll shut up about it."

Cuddy looked nervously between the two friends. "He's just trying to help, House. Sometimes it feels better to just talk about what was hardest."

"Yeah, well, I think you two are better at all the _feelings_ talk." He had an edge to his voice and she didn't know why, but House was still processing the conversation Wilson and Cuddy had had in front of him. "You wanna know what was hardest?" he asked suddenly. "Sitting next to her husband when she was dead in between us."

It was shocking, somehow, that image, and neither Cuddy nor Wilson spoke.

"Who fucked up the end of her life more?" House continued. "I tried everything to save her leg, did all the medical stuff right, and eventually did everything to save her life. But I couldn't do anything for her fear down there. And he showed up and told her he didn't give a fuck about her leg and comforted her and reassured her when she was finally free. But he couldn't do anything to save her life." House swallowed. "In the end," House frowned thoughtfully, "You can do everything right and all still turns to shit."

"There's my miserable old friend," Wilson teased. "I was worried you were gone forever." He fake sniffled.

House looked at him. "You asked," he said.

"You're right," Wilson conceded.

They talked about other details of the day, what Cuddy was facing when she finally went back to work. Wilson told House his team was taking turns doing paperwork and napping in his chair. Then he looked from one to the other of them. "I _am_ happy for you guys," he said through a mouthful of food. "Equal parts happy and terrified."

"Don't be so dramatic," House snapped.

Wilson wiped his mouth. "Oh, that's right. You guys are just dealing with the banal challenges of coupledom that everyone faces. You'll fight about toilet seats and whose turn it is to do the dishes." He grinned playfully.

"You make catastrophies out of everything," House accused. He wasn't grinning or smirking or showing any signs of playfulness. "You _want_ everything to be messy so you can get involved in the mess."

Wilson felt House's ire and his own began to rear up. "_You_ never clean up your messes," he snapped back, pointing his chopsticks at House. "So someone needs to keep you from dying in your own-"

"Okay, boys," Cuddy interjected. "Enough. You're both right. House is reckless and Wilson is meddlesome. You're perfect for each other."

"He's also a buzzkill," House groused.

"Life is more than chasing buzzes," Wilson replied.

"What do you know about life?" House barked at him, looking seriously angry. "You spend your days helping people die comfortably, and your nights comfortably dying."

"Oh, and I suppose driving a hundred on your motorcycle and popping Vicodin is what _carpe diem_ is all about?"

"When was the last time I popped a Vicodin?!" House yelled, abruptly dropping his chopsticks, standing up, and scowling down at Wilson.

"House!" Cuddy shouted standing up and putting a hand on his chest. "House, it's okay. Everybody just calm down." He did sit down, hunching over his spread legs, his hands folded. He stared at the ground for a minute while they all sat in awkward silence. Then he looked up at Wilson. "You always tell me you want me to be happy," he said in a controlled, even tone. "But you won't let me change. It works for you if I'm unhappy."

Wilson looked sad, but sat silently with his accusation for a moment. "I know you've changed, House," he said quietly. "But this isn't trying a cooking class or moving to a new apartment. This… is a massive change."

"I've been in relationships, for chrissake," House mumbled.

"It's been a long time, House," Wilson answered. "And a lot of new issues have arisen since Stacy." He took a deep breath. "Like you're an addict now."

"We talked about that," Cuddy offered in a slightly defensive whisper.

Wilson smiled sadly. "Oh. Good. Glad that's all squared away then." He decided to go for something easier. "Like you two fight like junkyard dogs."

House continued staring at the floor. "Covered that too," he said halfheartedly. He stretched his leg out in front of him, then bent it back again.

"Like the leg you're trying not to rub right now is in constant pain." There was silence. "I see there are a few things left out of the prenup, then," he teased. "Who gets House's pain if this all goes south?" There were so many levels to that question, they all just sat there with it for a moment. "So, look," Wilson said, standing up and brushing non-existent lint off his pants. "I've clearly outdone myself in the killjoy department today. I didn't realize how efficient I was getting," he joked. House snickered a little and Wilson felt slightly less awful. "So I'll go and let you two do… whatever it is you two have somehow managed to figure out here." He picked up his keys and walked to the door. Just before closing it behind him, he stuck his head back in. "I do meddle…" he said to the floor. "But I don't need you to be unhappy, House. You're the one who needs that."

House nodded, still looking at the floor. Wilson nodded back, satisfied they had made up sufficiently, and shut the door.

Cuddy studied House for a moment, not sure what he wanted right then. Then she just went to him, sitting on his lap and leaning her head back against his shoulder when he sat back to make room for her. "I've never seen you guys, like, actually fight."

"We save it up for inappropriately-timed occasions," he grumbled.

Cuddy laughed quietly and reached a hand up to stroke the side of his face while they both sat in silence, processing the strange lunch. House ran a hand along her thigh, but was otherwise very still. After several minutes, Cuddy got up and started taking the food containers to the kitchen. "Better stick these in the fridge. We'll need them if we continue living our unproductive, half-dressed lifestyle," she joked trying to get back to the easy footing of an hour ago.

She was putting chopsticks and empty soy sauce packets in the garbage when House asked, "How long do I have you?"

"Umm," she thought. "Well, I asked Julia to keep Rachel one more night, but I really should go in the actual _morning_ tomorrow, or else I'm the worst mom alive." There was silence. Cuddy stopped fussing and leaned back on the counter, looking at a side angle of the back of House's head as he continued staring into space.

"That's not what I meant," he said.

Cuddy tightened her lips. "What did you mean?" she asked carefully.

"I mean, how long do _I_… have _you_?"

The words made them both realize that the question had been in the air since the beginning. How long would, could this last?

"What do you want me to say, House? How long do you want me?" She turned the question back to him. They both had the answer on the tips of their tongues - the word that meant _without end_ – but were scared to be the ones to ask for it, to set that bar for this endeavor. "I'm not going anywhere, House. I don't have a planned trajectory for this."

"But you're betting against the odds," he commented sadly.

Cuddy walked into the room now to face him. "No, I'm not."

"Wilson said you were adamant that we'd never work," he reminded her. Cuddy sighed and started to protest, but House kept going. "You have been itemizing your dealbreakers and acknowledging how you resisted _for years_ where the wind was blowing you."

"God, House," she said going to him and straddling his lap, needing to break through his malaise so he would hear her. "I didn't mean it like that. I was just… they're just turns of phrase."

"Wilson's right. You were totally set against this and now suddenly you think it's worth a shot. But…"

"But?" Cuddy probed.

"You said it: You wish you didn't love me, Cuddy. And I know myself. I'm gonna give you enough reasons not to, that you'll get your wish."

"I'm such an idiot," she said, putting her forehead to his shoulder. "I don't wish that. I don't _really_ wish that. It was… a joke. A stupid joke. I was nervous. I was professing my feelings for you, out loud, for the first time. I…" She trailed off and held his face in her hands, looking at his furrowed brow and downturned mouth.

"I am an idiot for saying that because what I really wish is that I could get you to not be afraid. _You _said you wished I loved you, all this time, House." She kissed his forehead, then pressed it to hers and looked in his eyes. "But you _were_ sure. You _did_ know I loved you. You didn't need a whiteboard and a team to figure that out. But you knew once we started, you'd be afraid of the end."

House was still and silent and Cuddy grew frustrated with him, with his resignation that he'd end up unhappy. "God, House, you think you're the only one who's risking their heart here? You want me to define and prove my love for you, but it pushes you away. You have always acted out of fear of love. You disappear so that I can't blow you off when you get expelled from school. You sabotage my dates instead of asking me on one. You attack me instead of being vulnerable with me." She was gently hitting his chest with her fists at each proclamation. Then she got up and paced around a little.

House held a hand out to her, wanting her to stay close. "Don't get mad," he told her.

She took a deep breath, ignoring him. "House, do you know what I wish?" He looked away from her, down the hall. "Like Wilson, I wish you could be happy!" she yelled. "You're always waiting for the sucker punch, the empty bottle. You think every high has a crash at the end. And, fuck, House, everyone who loves you gives you everything they can give you, and you're never sure it's gonna be enough, so you don't even stick around to see." She stopped pacing and looked at him. "You want me to tell you how long you have me, House? You wanna know how fast you're gonna use me up? House? Listen to me, buddy." House looked at her and she was shaking. "I'll give you all of me. I came here last night to give you all of me. You don't need a secret stash of me somewhere. You don't need to ration me. I am the refillable prescription." She was hugging herself, trembling with emotion, and House stood up and went to her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close against him. "And even if we didn't talk about every nuance of this before Wilson's fucking arrival," she mumbled against his shirt, "I _know_ what I am getting into here."

House closed his eyes and she felt some of the tension drain from him. "I'm just worried," he replied in a sad voice, "That… if we break up…" He sighed heavily. "That Wilson couldn't take it," he murmured into her hair. They both started laughing.

Cuddy turned her head and laid it on his chest. "Ask me again, House."

He was quiet for a full minute, tickling her back under the tee. Then, "How long do I have you, Cuddy?"

"You want me to say forever?" He didn't respond. Cuddy pulled back and looked up at him. "You gotta learn to talk about this stuff, House. To tell me what you need if you want me to give it to you."

House slid his hand up her back and into her hair. He pulled her face to his and kissed her. It was kissing reminiscent of the bathroom wall, when she'd first arrived, careful and tentative, then slowly deepening. He held her face in his hands, kissing her lips, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. "House," she whispered, barely breathing.

"Shut up. I'm talking here," he whispered back. His fingers curled under the hem of her shirt and he paused, nose to nose, looking in her eyes.

Cuddy raised her arms above her head. "I'm listening," she teased.

He grinned and pulled the shirt up over her head, tossing it aside to pull her body close again. He lowered his lips to her neck, kissing up to her ear, down her jawline. "You getting all this?" he said between kisses.

Cuddy's head was tilted back and her knees were weak. "Kinda. Can you speak up a little?" she sighed, pulling his shirt off his body.

"Yeah, of course." House bent and kissed his way down her body as he went to his knees in front of her, pulling down the barely-on sweats while he kissed her stomach. Cuddy stood there trembling for a completely different reason now, feeling his mouth on her hips, his hands moving along the length of her legs. He pushed against the front of her thighs gently, urging her toward the couch.

Cuddy was trying to catch her breath as she stepped back until her calves hit couch and he pulled her hands to make her sit. She immediately squeaked out a crazy sound of pleasure when he wasted no time, pushing her thighs open and hooking her legs over his shoulders, pressing his mouth to her sex. "Can you hear me now?" he asked when her hands went to his head.

"Fuck. Yes." She was crazy for him, that was for sure. He'd just been a grump, a curmudgeon, a hot-head, and a pessimist, but all she wanted was him inside her… her body, her brain, her life. So whatever they hadn't covered, whatever baggage they were dragging to this, she knew they were past the point of no return. They had ignited, finally, and there was no going back, whatever might burn up in their path.

Cuddy was so turned on, she started bucking a little from her seat and House scooped her ass into his hands. She had thought he'd blown her mind already, but something about the tension of discussing their relationship, the release of venting their worries and frustrations, and the palpable desire that constantly ran between them had pushed this to a whole new level. She was delirious, feeling his mouth on her, his body between her legs. The way he pulled her to him with his hands, always wanting more of her, made her high. The dry scratch of his stubble against her skin, right next to the pressing warmth of his mouth, made her shift and move in his arms, just to feel all she could feel. And he was more than happy to explore what he could do to her, taking her closer, then moving in a different way, backing off a bit, or shifting his attention. She was so close to getting off, dying for it, and she dug her heels into his back, trying to communicate to him through moans and incoherent murmuring that she needed this.

Suddenly he shifted and her legs dropped to the sides of him. He pushed back from her a bit and looked up. His face was one of total arousal, studying hers in her state of near-bliss, but then grew serious. She looked back at him with a pained expression, wondering what the hell he was doing to her. "I want this so much," he told her, his own breath heavy with desire. "But in letting myself get here, I've put it all in your hands." He let out a shaky exhalation. "And you could just decide to stop."

Cuddy heard him, but wanted to cry with how much she needed his mouth back on her. And that's what made her get him. Because of how intense it was, right in this moment, she couldn't even imagine that being taken away, of losing the orgasm she had nearly reached. She felt overwhelmed at the prospect, and it illogically scared and annoyed and saddened her.

And that was just a fucking orgasm.

Her words were stilted and her breath was fitful, but she told him the honest-to-god truth: "I get it, okay? I want you so bad it's killing me right now," she whined, "But I also know you're not gonna stop now, House… You can't stop now, and neither can I."

Satisfied, he pressed himself against her again, tasting her and teasing her and pushing her to her limit. When Cuddy came it was loud and rowdy and wild, with all of her passion for him exploding in one physical act that was beyond her control and only seemed to drive her further into ecstasy, and House further into obsession. She had barely calmed, still shaking against him, when he was pulling her to him again, laying her back on the couch. Cuddy was still so stunned by the intensity of her orgasm, but when he entered her, it was a different sensation that mingled with her receding pleasure in a powerful way, making her want him just as intensely almost immediately.

Just like she drove there the night before, _both_ for him and for herself, their sex was completely selfishly selfless. They both acted to give the other pleasure, because that was all they themselves wanted. And just like each moment of happiness during these hours would fuel the next, being parlayed into something greater, richer, more satisfying, each moment of making love only fed their desire more… This was never gonna be easy – putting their clothes back on and trying to pretend they didn't want to just go do this instead of anything else. And that was awesome. And that was terrifying.

He was kissing her and fucking her and holding her like this was never going to end. And she finally heard him. She heard his request for forever in his hand grasping her hip and pressing it to his. She heard it in his breath in her ear, occasionally forming her name. She heard it in his eyes, pleading for a moment just before they closed in bliss. And he fell. And she went with him. If she'd held onto something in the previous eighteen hours, she let go and fell with him. All the way.

**[H] [H] [H]**

They were laying there still, an hour later, touching and kissing and being snarky and stupid. He pretended to be wounded when she got up to pee, and she teased him about all the new work rules she was going to enforce on him. They were flirting, like always. It wasn't so different. It _was_ still fun.

So what happened next was actually kinda perfect. They heard a knock on the door. House groaned against her neck, then stood and pulled his scattered clothes back on and went to answer it. He opened the door to see a dozen floating balloons, all tied and tethered to a big box with a cake inside. Scrawled along the top of the box, Wilson had written "I bought you a new party, since I pooped on your first one." House smiled widely when he heard a footstep shuffle on the stairs below.

"Get a job!" he yelled.

"Get a room!" Wilson yelled back up, and he heard the door close behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**This is the last chapter of this fic. (Interestingly, it's the first chapter that I wrote… That moment when they are standing on opposite sides of his apartment door inspired the whole thing.) I hope you enjoy it.**

**[H] [H] [H]**

He had lost track of the sex. It was constant. It was like they took respites for basic human needs, but the rest was foreplay and/or afterglow. They just couldn't keep their hands off of each other, or their mouths for that matter. Every kiss and caress that had been held back over the last years was begging to find its second chance. This led to tender, slow moments in which adorations were murmured – half-asleep on the couch, half-dressed against his piano – and to intense bursts of lust in which their desire was animalistic – from behind against the kitchen counter, on the hallway floor because they couldn't make it to the bedroom. One thing was for sure: any future breakup would entail a realtor because they had been everywhere.

Despite this constant confirmation of their mutual affection, and despite the fact that he was at that very moment moving inside her and hearing his name gasped from her lips, he saw the clock on his bedside table switch to midnight and noted that it was officially the day she would have to leave this apartment. Though he wasn't consciously manipulating her or doing anything all that special, he intensely feared the prospect that this was a spell that would be broken when she walked back into everyday life.

He _knew _he'd have her at least until morning… after that, all bets were off. So he dreaded the passing of time. She'd told him to say forever, and he'd tried. She'd told him to say what he wanted, and he'd tried. But how long can a man go on, expecting only the worst, preparing only for disappointment, feeling only mistrust, before he couldn't go back? When did these things stop being what a man did to protect himself, and become the man himself?

**[H] [H] [H]**

House was sitting on the porch steps with two beers. He'd waited until she was asleep then called Wilson, who had now parked on the street and was walking up to sit next to him. "I'm on call tonight, so I'll have to go if someone needs me who is actually savable," Wilson teased. House handed him a beer wordlessly and they sat in silence for several minutes, listening to crickets chirp and cars pass. "Freaking out?" Wilson finally asked.

"Little bit," House replied.

Wilson nodded and took a swig. "You're not the only one, House. Everyone is scared of getting hurt."

They were silent a minute and then House said quietly to the sidewalk, "Last time I had her, she was imaginary."

Wilson's heart broke for him a little. House and Cuddy were so complexly connected, a spiderweb of moments that were both painful and exhilarating. They had loved each other from the beginning, as kids just becoming adults. She had made decisions, out of love, that had altered the state of his body forever. She had hired him, out of love, when no one else could handle him. He had let her handle him, out of love, when he would have leveled anyone else with a single glare. He had monitored her, protected her in his own weird ways, out of love, for years. And in some ways, they needed to put these things behind them to move forward, but if you cut any one of those strands, the whole structure might fall apart. And House was smart enough to know that.

"Look," Wilson said in a practical voice. "You can't _not_ do this. You have to move forward, even though you're terrified. In that respect, it's done and there's nothing to obsess about."

House nodded, hunched on the steps, his beer bottle dangling between his fingers. "Or I could end it now. Make her see it won't work. Save us a lot of trouble."

Wilson nodded now. "Or you could do that." He was thoughtful a moment. "But if you do that… sober or not, you haven't changed." House turned and looked at Wilson for a second, before returning to his study of the stoop. "It's not that different, House. The Vicodin numbed you, and when you kicked it, you had to deal with feeling your leg more, among other sensations." He sipped his beer. "Being perpetually unhappy has numbed you too. There's nothing to be scared of if you're already miserable. And right now, you're deciding if you're ready to kick that, and feel things more."

House toed some gravel off the edge of the step. "She's controlling," House pointed out, trying to distract Wilson from the real problem.

Wilson was not buying it. "You're irresponsible."

"She's hopelessly idealistic."

"You're fearlessly nihilistic."

"She's got a kid."

"You've got a limp."

House sighed heavily. "She thinks I'm fixable… She wouldn't do this if she didn't think that."

"_You_ think you're fixable," Wilson countered. "You wouldn't be considering this if you didn't think that."

"Who says I'm considering it?"

"This whole weekend. This whole decade. The phone call at one in the morning that's really asking me to help you talk your status quo into a new game plan." They were silent again for a moment. "For God's sake, House, you love her. You've always loved her, so what's the real risk here? You'll end up more miserable? When you had a four-Vicodin night, did you worry you'd end up more addicted? She's… You couldn't quit her if you tried."

House considered what Wilson was saying. There were a lot of things to overcome and a lot of unanswered questions about how this would work, but there really was only one risk… living without her. Was he just scared of being surprised by that? Would he rather do it to himself, braced for the impact? He rubbed his thigh and though for a moment, then explained, "I always said, after that last detox, that that was it. If it didn't take, Vicodin would just have to be the death of me."

Wilson glanced over at him. "So you wanna try to get Cuddy out of your system one more time, before you admit she's got you for good?" He leaned back on his elbows, staring into the street.

"No," House corrected. "I'm saying I tried that. It didn't take. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I can't think about anything else. I'm jonesing for her and she's lying in my fucking bed right now."

"Why, Dr. House," Wilson grinned. "You're lovesick."

"And it's killing me."

Wilson leaned over a little and bumped his shoulder against House's. "But what a way to go." House finally grinned too. "Anyway," Wilson continued. "You're a pretty tough nut. You might outlive me and show up at my funeral, perhaps high, perhaps with Cuddy on your arm."

House snorted. "Like I'd go to your funeral."

**[H] [H] [H]**

Morning came, as it always did, and she woke him with kissing and the feel of her skin against his body. He savored her all the more because he thought he might lose her. But just as he'd felt the soft tickle of her hair against his shoulder, he felt the cold space when she climbed out of bed. Just as he'd seen her gray eyes twinkle when he grabbed her ass, he saw them drift as she made her plan for the day as they walked to the living room. Just as he'd heard her say she loved him, her voice quiet and husky in his ear, he heard the sound of the doorknob squeak when she turned it. Just as he'd tasted the warm flavor of her mouth, he tasted his appetite for a bitter pill as she smiled at him and shut the door behind her.

He stood there, his heart thumping against his chest, like he'd dropped something down a deep hole, and now he had to jump in after it or let it go. It was a very deep, dark hole… but what he'd dropped was very precious. In fact, without it, he may as well go jump in a deep dark hole anyway.

House swung the door back open when he heard her feet on the stairs. She stopped halfway down the landing, turning back to look at him. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, both having just entered the reality of the life they were embarking on, and feeling the ebb of ecstasy and the flow of fear. Cuddy raised her eyebrows in inquiry. He stared at her with an intensity that was freaking her out even more.

"I'm …" He cleared his throat. "I'm scared, Cuddy," he said in a voice so low, she almost didn't hear him. "If this doesn't work…" He turned his head and looked at some spot in space. "This is what I had," he confessed. "This is what I looked forward to." He refocused on her and stepped down the few stairs between them. He sank down on a step above her and leaned forward, his head resting against her stomach. "I lost us two days ago and I couldn't handle it. And I'm scared if we do this wrong, I'll lose us for good."

Cuddy clicked her tongue. "We won't screw it up," she comforted, her hands on his head.

"We screw everything up."

"That's not true," she said quickly. "We… mess it up. Being messy is different than being screwed." House looked up at her and she held his face in her hands. He looked hesitantly hopeful, so she continued. "That's what you've helped me see, House. Tidy is just tidy. It doesn't mean it works. And messy is just messy. It doesn't mean it doesn't work. Our working relationship is messy. No one would hold it up as an example of healthy professional functioning. But whenever people, from Wilson to HR reps, offer me advice about how I should handle you, I simply explain to them that I got this. That what we do works." She crouched down in front of him and put her hands on his knees. "I'm hoping we can do the same here."

House smirked at her. "You're hoping I'll sneak, lie, avoid, yell, bully, and back you into corners to get what I want? You have a strange idea of romance."

Cuddy grinned at him. "I'm hoping you'll be yourself. I'm hoping you'll be obsessive and analytical and brutally honest. I'm hoping you can take what you dish out. I'm hoping you can be logical and reasonable. I'm hoping you'll passionately pursue what you want." She kissed his forehead lightly. "And I'm hoping I'm what you want."

"I'm not worried about _that,_" he answered quickly. Then he exhaled sharply, bracing himself to keep going. "You gotta understand something, Cuddy. I won't end this. I won't quit. Even if it's awful."

Cuddy laughed. "_You _have a strange idea of romance."

"I'm serious. You have to know that if you ever want out of this, you gotta do it. And it'll kill me." His blue eyes were wide and fixed on hers. "I feel like I need to make that clear before we go any further."

Cuddy stared back, a little shaken up by his reality check. "But no pressure," she joked.

He didn't smile. "You told me to tell you what I want. Right now… forty years from now… or somewhere in between," he told her, "You'll be the death of me." Cuddy blinked, startled. "That's not a threat, or an ultimatum. It's what I want. You're it for me, Cuddy. You're… the only thing I can say this about." He cleared his throat a little again, then forced himself to meet her eyes. She met his wide blue stare, noted his pupils dilated in fear. "I want you until the end. I want you forever. So I'm afraid to let you go right now."

He sat there, looking at her, steeling himself for a response that might level him. Maybe he was freaking her out, or he was asking too much, or he was going too fast. But Cuddy smiled. "Good work asking with my clothes on," she teased.

"It's both less fun and less distracting," he replied.

Cuddy sighed. "House, I feel… the same way. But I'm worried that you don't understand that forever still means expense reports and consent forms and putting clothes on and eating things that aren't cake and scotch. This weekend was… I'll never forget it. And I want you to want me forever. But when I tell you that forever entails going to pick up my daughter and check her backpack for teacher notes and picking up the dry cleaning and cooking a square meal and checking emails before I go to bed… That's my life, House. I'm afraid… I'll bore you. So I'm afraid to go right now too." She tucked her hair behind her ears, and hooked her hands on the back of her neck, waiting for his response.

House stood up, held a finger up in a _hold on a sec_ sign, and walked back into his apartment. He came back out in jeans and a tee, pulling on his jacket as he locked his door, and came down the stairs, cane in hand. As he passed Cuddy he took her hand. When he was a couple steps lower, their arms were extended and he stopped and looked back up at her, planted on her step. She waited for him to explain what this was… Some spontaneous adventure to make the weekend last a little longer? Some walk to her car for a "serious talk?" But when he looked back up at her he smiled; even his sad eyes smiled.

"Where are we going?" she asked, smirking at him suspiciously.

House raised his eyebrows. "You say getting Rachel and your dry cleaning is next on your list for forever?"

She smiled. "Yeah."

He tugged her arm gently and nodded his head down toward the door to the outside world. "So… Let's go."


End file.
